Front Page
Politics
Economy
International
Sports
Society
Culture
Videos
Newspapers
Ahram Online
Al-Ahram Weekly
Albawaba
Almasry Alyoum
Amwal Al Ghad
Arab News Agency
Bikya Masr
Daily News Egypt
FilGoal
The Egyptian Gazette
Youm7
Subject
Author
Region
f
t
مصرس
URGENT: US PPI declines by 0.2% in May
Egypt secures $130m in non-refundable USAID grants
HSBC named Egypt's Best Bank for Diversity, Inclusion by Euromoney
Singapore offers refiners carbon tax rebates for '24, '25
Egypt's CBE offers EGP 4b zero coupon t-bonds
G7 agrees on $50b Ukraine loan from frozen Russian assets
EU dairy faces China tariff threat
Over 12,000 Egyptian pilgrims receive medical care during Hajj: Health Ministry
Egypt's rise as global logistics hub takes centre stage at New Development Bank Seminar
Blinken addresses Hamas ceasefire counterproposal, future governance plans for Gaza
MSMEDA, EABA sign MoU to offer new marketing opportunities for Egyptian SMEs in Africa
Egypt's President Al-Sisi, Equatorial Guinea's Vice President discuss bilateral cooperation, regional Issues
Egypt's Higher Education Minister pledges deeper cooperation with BRICS at Kazan Summit
Gaza death toll rises to 37,164, injuries hit 84,832 amid ongoing Israeli attacks
Egypt's Water Research, Space Agencies join forces to tackle water challenges
BRICS Skate Cup: Skateboarders from Egypt, 22 nations gather in Russia
Pharaohs Edge Out Burkina Faso in World Cup qualifiers Thriller
Egypt's EDA, Zambia sign collaboration pact
Madinaty Sports Club hosts successful 4th Qadya MMA Championship
Amwal Al Ghad Awards 2024 announces Entrepreneurs of the Year
Egyptian President asks Madbouly to form new government, outlines priorities
Egypt's President assigns Madbouly to form new government
Egypt and Tanzania discuss water cooperation
Grand Egyptian Museum opening: Madbouly reviews final preparations
Madinaty's inaugural Skydiving event boosts sports tourism appeal
Tunisia's President Saied reshuffles cabinet amidst political tension
Instagram Celebrates African Women in 'Made by Africa, Loved by the World' 2024 Campaign
Egypt to build 58 hospitals by '25
Swiss freeze on Russian assets dwindles to $6.36b in '23
Egyptian public, private sectors off on Apr 25 marking Sinai Liberation
Debt swaps could unlock $100b for climate action
Financial literacy becomes extremely important – EGX official
Euro area annual inflation up to 2.9% – Eurostat
BYD، Brazil's Sigma Lithium JV likely
UNESCO celebrates World Arabic Language Day
Motaz Azaiza mural in Manchester tribute to Palestinian journalists
Russia says it's in sync with US, China, Pakistan on Taliban
It's a bit frustrating to draw at home: Real Madrid keeper after Villarreal game
Shoukry reviews with Guterres Egypt's efforts to achieve SDGs, promote human rights
Sudan says countries must cooperate on vaccines
Johnson & Johnson: Second shot boosts antibodies and protection against COVID-19
Egypt to tax bloggers, YouTubers
Egypt's FM asserts importance of stability in Libya, holding elections as scheduled
We mustn't lose touch: Muller after Bayern win in Bundesliga
Egypt records 36 new deaths from Covid-19, highest since mid June
Egypt sells $3 bln US-dollar dominated eurobonds
Gamal Hanafy's ceramic exhibition at Gezira Arts Centre is a must go
Italian Institute Director Davide Scalmani presents activities of the Cairo Institute for ITALIANA.IT platform
Thank you for reporting!
This image will be automatically disabled when it gets reported by several people.
OK
When liberal internationalists support the US empire
Ian Buruma
Published in
Daily News Egypt
on 25 - 06 - 2007
Bernard Kouchner, France's new foreign minister, has a long and distinguished record as an advocate of intervention in countries where human rights are abused. As a co-founder of Doctors Without Borders, he stated that "we were establishing the moral right to interfere inside someone else's country. Saddam Hussein's mass murder of
Iraqi
citizens is why Kouchner supported the war in
Iraq
. One should always be careful about attributing motives to other people's views. But Kouchner himself has often said that the murder of his Russian-Jewish grandparents in Auschwitz inspired his humanitarian interventionism. One may or may not agree with Kouchner's policies, but his motives are surely impeccable. The fact that many prominent Jewish intellectuals in Europe and the
United States
- often, like Kouchner, with a leftist past - are sympathetic to the idea of using American armed force to further the cause of human rights and democracy in the world, may derive from the same wellspring. Any force is justified to avoid another Shoah, and those who shirk their duty to support such force are regarded as no better than collaborators with evil. If we were less haunted by memories of appeasing the Nazi regime, and of the ensuing genocide, people might not be as concerned about human rights as they are. And by no means do all those who work to protect the rights of others invoke the horrors of the Third Reich to justify Anglo-American armed intervention. But the term "Islamo-fascism was not coined for nothing. It invites us to see a big part of the Islamic world as a natural extension of Nazism. Saddam Hussein, who was hardly an Islamist, and
Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is, are often described as natural successors to Adolf Hitler. And European weakness, not to mention the "treason of its liberal scribes, paving the way to an Islamist conquest of Europe ("Eurabia ) is seen as a ghastly echo of the appeasement of the Nazi threat. Revolutionary Islamism is undoubtedly dangerous and bloody. Yet analogies with the Third Reich, although highly effective as a way to denounce people with whose views one disagrees, are usually false. No Islamist armies are about to march into Europe - indeed, most victims of revolutionary Islamism live in the Middle East, not in Europe - and Ahmadinejad, his nasty rhetoric notwithstanding, does not have a fraction of Hitler's power. The refusal of many Muslims to integrate into Western societies, as well as high levels of unemployment and ready access to revolutionary propaganda, can easily explode in acts of violence. But the prospect of an "Islamized Europe is also remote. We are not living a replay of 1938. So why the high alarm about European appeasement, especially among the neoconservatives? Why the easy equation of Islamism with Nazism?
Israel
is often mentioned as a reason. But
Israel
can mean different things to different people. To certain evangelical Christians, it is the holy site of the Second Coming of the Messiah. To many Jews, it is the one state that will always offer refuge. To neoconservative ideologues, it is the democratic oasis in a desert of tyrannies. Defending
Israel
against its Islamic enemies may indeed be a factor in the existential alarmism that underlies the present "war on terror. A nuclear-armed
Iran
would certainly make
Israel
feel more vulnerable. But it is probably overstated as an explanation. Kouchner did not advocate Western intervention in
Bosnia
or Kosovo because of
Israel
. If concern for
Israel
played a part in Paul Wolfowitz's advocacy of war in
Iraq
, it was probably a minor one. Both men were motivated by common concerns for human rights and democracy, as well as perhaps by geopolitical considerations. Still, Islamist rhetoric, adopted by Ahmadinejad among others, is deliberately designed to stir up memories of the Shoah. So perhaps the existential fear of some Western intellectuals is easier to explain than their remarkable, sometimes fawning trust in the US government to save the world by force. The explanation of this mysterious trust may lie elsewhere. Many neocons emerged from a leftist past, in which a belief in revolution from above was commonplace: "people's democracies yesterday, "liberal democracies today. Among Jews and other minorities, another historical memory may also play a part: the protection of the imperial state. Austrian and Hungarian Jews were among the most fiercely loyal subjects of the Austro-Hungarian Emperor, because he shielded them from the violent nationalism of the majority populations. Polish and Russian Jews, at least at the beginning of the communist era, were often loyal subjects of the communist state, because it promised (falsely, as it turned out) to protect them against the violence of anti-Semitic nationalists. If it were really true that the fundamental existence of our democratic Western world were about to be destroyed by an Islamist revolution, it would only make sense to seek protection in the full force of the US informal empire. But if one sees our current problems in less apocalyptic terms, then another kind of "trahison des clercs comes into view: the blind cheering on of a sometimes foolish military power embarked on unnecessary wars that cost more lives than they were intended to save. Ian Burumais author, most recently, of "Murder in
Amsterdam
: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance. He is a professor of human rights at Bard College. THE DAILY STAR publishes this commentary in collaboration Project Syndicate © (www.project-syndicate.org).
Clic
here
to read the story from its source.
Related stories
The Kouchner Conversion
Medicins Sans Frontieres co-founder commemorates a life and inspires a cause
France's FM begins 4-day Mideast tour to boost Israeli-Palestinian peace process
France and Egypt support foreign efforts in Lebanon
Report inappropriate advertisement